I know I can grow because I’ve got Enrolmy - Mandy Jakich of Creative Matters
Mandy Jakich, the founder and CEO of Creative Matters, is on a mission to share her passion for visual art with as many people as possible. Being a self-taught artist with a myriad of teaching experiences, Mandy has been leading a modern change in the delivery of art education through her initiative, Creative Matters. In this case study, we delve into the story of passion behind her revolutionary art programme – its inception, her vision and how they’ve managed to thrive amidst rapidly growing enrolments.
The Genesis of Creative Matters
In mid-2015, Creative Matters was born out of Mandy’s passion for art and her desire to share this passion with others. Prior to this, she had 25 years of experience teaching in various primary and intermediate schools all across Auckland. And for four years she worked at the Auckland Art Gallery as an art educator; designing and delivering visual arts programmes to primary, secondary and special needs children, as well as Professional Development courses for teachers.
The vision of Creative Matters was to create a space where teachers, teens, and adults could explore their creativity and experience the joy of being immersed in the artistic process.
Empowerment Through Art
Creative Matters offers after-school classes, holiday programs, online classes, private tuition, and children's art parties.
The focus is not just on teaching artistic techniques but also on encouraging students to take risks, build confidence, think imaginatively and critically analyse their work.
There is a strong intention in the creative process and experimenting. Which Mandy says helps students take risks and build their confidence and skills with different artistic techniques, including sculpture, drawing and painting.
They also offer holiday programmes, which run Monday to Friday where students work on a creative project. Layer by layer, through trying sharing and reflecting, kids embrace the creative process, try something new, and feel ownership and pride in their final work.
Initially, Mandy taught all the workshops herself. Now, eight years later, she has 15 contractors, made up of 13 art educators and two administrators. To date, they have taught more than 800 creative programmes and worked with more than 10,000 children.
With an increased interest in the provision of rich and creative opportunities for children, Mandy realised she needed to adapt her booking management system to the growing number of interested parents.
“Booking was a bulky, drawn-out process.”
In the beginning, all Creative Matters bookings were made through email. It was a lot of back and forth between parents, with an average of four exchanges before bookings were confirmed. Not only this but parents or caregivers had to complete a physical enrolment form, which they then had to scan and send back or bring in person.
While this system worked well when the classes were small, as the numbers increased, Mandy found it overwhelming to manage the influx of emails.
In 2016, Mandy sought advice from another provider on how to improve their business processes, and that's when she was introduced to Enrolmy.
How Enrolmy has Automated Creative Matters Processes
Since implementing Enrolmy, the Creative Matters database has over 4,000 children on it and their classes run across Auckland, from Chatswood on the North Shore to Helensville in the west. Managing invoices and emails for bookings of this capacity across different locations is now a breeze as Mandy says:
[Enrolmy is] a really good resource for our emails and database.
Mandy is passionate about reaching as many kids as possible and Enrolmy enables that to happen. She particularly appreciates how many of her old admin processes are now automatic. She noted that it would be virtually impossible to run her business at the size it is now or grow to the number of programmes.
“[There’s] no way that I could manage [running my business the size it is now] if I didn’t have that automated. I wouldn’t be able to grow the business and go into different areas. That’s massive.”
Enrolmy's features like Xero integration and email templates have been particularly valuable for Creative Matters. Mandy explained that its email templates allowed her to communicate easily with her client base in an authentic way:
“[I can now] communicate really easily in my own voice... It feels good because I feel like I’m talking to my audience from the heart.”
Another benefit of Enrolmy is how Mandy has complete oversight of her business operations. She explained how she values being able to keep an eye on everything in one central place at any time. Mandy has also noticed that they don’t need to spend much time worrying about whether the money is coming in, because since using Enrolmy:
“I [mostly] don’t have people not paying or late payments. There’s not a lot of chasing.”
The Bright Future for Creative Matters
With the support of our software solution, Creative Matters has grown significantly and looking ahead, Mandy is confident that she can continue to expand it with Enrolmy by her side:
“I know I can grow because I’ve got Enrolmy sorting all that stuff. It’s easy. It’s manageable.”
Creative Matters stands as an example of what happens when creativity meets innovation head-on - it flourishes beyond expectations. Although Mandy and her team are currently focusing on Auckland, she is open to expanding their classes to other areas in the future. Committed to making a lasting difference in children’s lives and with effective systems in place her ambitious vision is not only feasible but likely to succeed. And Enrolmy is dedicated to supporting her goals every step of the way!
You’re invited to join Enrolmy!
We love supporting amazing providers like Creative Matters to deliver high-quality programmes that celebrate our kids, nurture their artistic abilities, and visual literacy and build their skills and confidence.
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